This competition was held on January 29th-30th at Randolph College, Lynchburg, Virginia. This is the second year that PRISMS has participated in USIYPT, abbreviation of “United States Invitational Young Physicists Tournament”. The format of this competition is based on research and debate. We were given four topics, including “The Domino Toppling Effect”, “Blender Lifting”, “Transformer Reflective Impedance”, and “Bouncing Laser Beam”. We had to do research projects on each of the topics, and at the presentation site we had six debating sessions with other teams. In each session, the reporting team makes a presentation on the chosen topic, while the opposing team gives questions and lead into discussions.
Facing challenges from strong schools like Philips Exeter Academy and best Chinese schools like RDFZ and Shenzhen Middle School, PRISMS had a satisfactory result, coming in 6th in total while also achieving 2nd place in the later poster session. Through this competition, our students improved their research skills and reaction abilities in debate sessions, while also learnt how to communicate with opponents politely. Of course, we also got much more experience and expect to make a much stronger stand in the tournament in 2017.
Following students took part in the competition: Joe Zhou, Frank Huang, May Ou, Frederic Peng, Joshua Huang, Lucia Lu, Angel Xu, Howard Hu, Nisha Mani, Eric Yu.
Special thanks to faculty sponsors: Qi Wang and Peter Tian.